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THE 



CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE 



ABOLITIONISM: 



..uiffit packb in t|e |irst fresbgtman €^mt\} of §roflfilp, S. |., 



SUNDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 9, 1860, 



Reverend HENRY J. VAN DYKE. 



'.M 



X' '■! 



[as reported for the "new YORK HERALD."] 




W AS KING TON: 

PRINTED BY HENRY POLKINHORN, 

18G0. 



-^ SERMON. 

1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all 
honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 

2. And they that have believing masters, let tliem not despise them, because they are 
brethren; but rather do them service, because thry are faithful, and beloved partukera of the 
benefit. These things teach and exhort. 

3. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of 
our l^ord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, 

4. He is proud, knowing noliiing but doting about questmiis and strifes of words wlierco 
cometh envy, strife, railinifs, evil surmisings, 

5. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing 
that gain is godliness; from such withdraw thyself. 

[Paul's First Epistle to Timothy— (Sth chap., 1st to 5th verse. 

I propose to discuss the cliaracter and influence of abolitionism. 
With this view, I have selected a text from the Bible, and purpose to 
adhere to the letter and spirit of its teaching. We ackowledge in this 
place but one standard of morals, but one authoritative and infallable 
rule of faith and practice. For we are Christians here : not Papists to 
bow down to the dictation of any man or church ; not heathen philoso- 
phers, to grope our way by the feeble glimmerings of the light of 
nature ; not modern infidels, to appeal from the written law of God to 
the corrupt and fickle tribunal of reason and humanity ; but Christians, 
on whose banner is inscribed this sublime challenge: "To the law 
and to the testimony — if they speak not according to this word it is 
because there is no light in them." 

Let me direct your special attention to the language of our text. 
There is no dispute among commentators — there is no room for dispute 
— as to the meaning of the expression " servants under the yoke." 
Even Mr. Barnes, who is himself a distinguished abolitionist, and has 
done more, perhaps, than any other man in this country to propagate 
abolition doctrines, admits that "the addition of the phrase ' under the 
yoke'" shows undoubtedly that it {i. e. the original word doulos) is to 
be understood here of slavery. Let me quote another testimony on 
this point from an eminent Scotcli divine — ^I mean Dr. McKnight — ■ 
whose exposition of the epistle is a standard work in Great Britain and 
in this country, and whose associations must exempt him from all 



suspicion of pro-slavery prejudices. He introduces his exposition of 
this chapter witli the following explanation: "Because the law of 
Moses allowed no Israelite to be juade a slave for life without his own 
consent, the Judaizing teachers, to allure slaves to their party, taught 
that under the gospel likewise involuntary slavery is unlawful. This 
doctrine the apostle condemned hefe, as in his other epistles, by enjoin- 
ing Christian slaves to honor and obey their masters, whether they were 
believers or unbelievers, and by assuring Timothy, that if any person 
taught otherwise he opposed the wholesome precepts of Jesus Christ 
and the doctrine of the gospel, which in all points is conformable to 
godliness or sound morality, and Avas puffed up with pride, without 
possessing any true knowledge either of the Jewish or Christian reve- 
lation." Our learned Scotch friend then goes on to expound the pas- 
sage in the following paraphrase, which we commend to the prayerful 
attention of all whom it may concern : 

"Let whatever Christian slaves are under the yoke of unbelievers 
pftj their own masters all respect and obedience, that the character of 
God whom we worship may not be calumniated, and the doctrine of 
the gospel may not be evil spoken of as tending to destroy the political 
rights of mankind. And those Christian slaves who have believing 
masters, let them not despise them, fancying that they are their equals 
because they are their brethren in Christ; for, though all Christians 
are equal as to religious privileges, slaves are inferior to their masters 
in station. Wherefore, let them serve their masters more diligently, 
because they who enjoy the benefit of their service are believers and 
beloved of God. 'These things teach, and exhort the brethren to 
practice them.' If any one teach differently by affirming that under 
the gospel slaves are not bound to serve their masters, but ought to be 
made free, and does not consent to the wholesome commandments which 
are our Lord Jesus Christ's, and to the doctrine of the gospel which in 
all points is conformable to true morality, he is puffed up with pride, 
and knoweth nothing either of the Jewish or the Christian revelations, 
though he pretends to have great knowledge of both ; but is distem- 
pered in his mind about idle questions and debate of words, which 
afford no foundation for such a doctrine, but are the source of envy, con- 
tention, evil speaking, unjust suspicion that the truth is not sincerely 
maintained, keen disputings carried on contrary to conscience by men 
wholly corrupted in their minds and destitute of the true doctrine of 
the gospel, wlio reckon whatever produces most money is the best reli- 
gion ; from all .such impious teachers withdraw thyself, and do not 
dispute with them.'' 



The text, as tlius expounded by an American abolitionist and a 
Scotch divine, (whose testimony need not be confirmed by quotations 
from all the other commentators,) is a prophecy written for these days and 
wonderfully applicable to our present circumstances. It gives us a life- 
like picture of abolitionism in its principles, its spirit and its practice, 
and furnishes us with plain instruction in regard to our duty in the 
premises. Before entering upon ^the discussion of the doctrine, let us 
define the terms employed. By abolitionism we mean the principles 
and measures of abolitionists. And what is an abolitionist ? He is 
one who believes that slaveholding is sin, and ought therefore be abol- 
ished. This is the fundamental, the characteristic, the essential prin- 
ciple of abolitionism : that slaveholding is sin ; that holding men in 
involuntary servitude is an infringement upon the rights of man, a 
heinous crime in the sight of God. A man may believe, on political 
or commercial grounds, that slavery is an undesirable system, and that 
slave labor is not the most profitable ; he may have various views as 
to the rights of slaveholders under the Constitution of the country ; he 
may think this or that law upon the statute books of Southern States 
is wrono- ; but this does not constitute him an abolitionist, unless he 
believes slaveholding is morally wrong. The alleged sinfulness of 
slaveholding, as it is the characteristic doctrine, so it is the strength of 
abolitionism in all its ramified and various forms. It is by this doc- 
trine that it lays hold upon the hearts and consciences of men, that it 
comes as a disturbing force into our ecclesiastical and civil institutions, 
and by exciting religious animosity (which all history proves to be the 
strongest of human passions) imparts a peculiar intensity to every con- 
test into which it enters. And you will perceive it is just here that 
abolitionism presents a proper subject for discussion in the pulpit — for 
it is one great purpose of the Bible, and therefore one great duty of 
God's ministers in its exposition, to show what is sin and what is not. 
Those who hold the doctrine that slaveholding is sin, and ought there- 
fore to be abolished, differ very much in the extent to which they 
reduce their theory to practice. In some, this faith is almost without 
works. They content themselves with only voting in such a way as 
in their judgment will best promote the ultimate triumph of their 
views. Others stand off at what they suppose a safe distance, as Shimei 
did when he stood on an opposite hill to curse King David and rebuke 
the sin and denounce divine judgments upon the sinner. Others, more 
practical, if not more prudent, go into the very midst of the alleged 
wickedness, and teach "servants under the yoke" that they ought not 
to count their own masters worthy of all honor ; that liberty is their 



6 

inalienable right, which they should maintain, if necessary, even by the 
shedding: of blood. Now, it is not for me to decide who of all these are 
the truest to their own principles. It is not for me to decide whether 
the man who preaches this doctrine in brave words, amid applauding 
multitudes in the city of Brooklyn, or the one who, in the stillness of 
night, and in the face of the law's terrors, goes to practice the preaching 
at Harper's Ferry, is the most consistent abolitionist and the most heroic 
man. It is not for me to decide which is the most important part of 
the tree; and if the tree be poisonous, which is the most injurious — 
the root, or the branches, or the fruit. But I am here to-night, in God's 
name, and by His help, to show that this tree of abolitionism is evil, 
and only evil, root and branch, flower and leaf, and fruit ; that it springs 
from, and is nourished by, an utter rejection of the Scriptures ; that it 
produces no real benefit to the enslaved, and is the fruitful source of 
division, and strife, and infidelity, in both church and State. I have 
four distinct propositions on the subject to maintain — four theses to 
nail up and defend : 

I. Abolitionism has no foundation in the Scriptures. 

II. Its principles have been promulgated chiefly by misrepresenta- 
tion and abuse. 

III. It leads, in multitudes of cases, and by a logical process, to utter 
infidelity. 

lY. It is the chief cause of the strife that agitates and the danger 
that threatens our country. 



I. — ABOLITIONISM HAS NO FOUNDATION IN SCRIPTURE. 

Passing by the records of the patriarchal age, and waiving the ques- 
tion as to those servants in Abraham's family who, in the simple, but 
expressive language of Scriptures, " were bought with his money," let 
us come at once to the tribunal of that law which God promulgated 
amid the solemnities of Sinai. What said the law and the testimony, 
to that peculiar people over whom God ruled, and for whose institu- 
tions he has assumed the responsibility ? The answer is in the 25th 
chapter of Leviticus, in these words : 

"And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be 
sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant, 
but as a hired servant; and a sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall 
serve thee unto the year of jubilee, and then shall he depart from thee, 
both he and his children with him." 



So far, you will observe, the law refers to the children of Israel who, 
by reason of poverty, were reduced to servitude. It was their right to 
be free at the year of jubilee, unless they chose to remain in perpetual 
bondage, for which case provision is made in other and distinct enact- 
ments. But not so with slaves of foreign birth. There was no year of 
jubilee provided for them. For what says the law? Read the 44-46 
verses of the same chapter. 

" Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall 
be of the heathen that are round about you. Of them shall ye buy bond- 
men and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that 
do sojourn among you — of them shall ye buy, and of their families that 
are with you which they beget in your land ; and they shall be your pos- 
session. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after 
you to inherit them as a possession ; they shall be your bondmen forever." 

There it is, plainly written in the divine law. No legislative enact- 
ment, no statute framed by legal skill, was ever more explicit and 
incapable of perversion. When the abolitionist tells me that slave- 
holding is sin, in the simplicity of my faith in the Holy Scriptures, I 
point him to this sacred record, and tell him in all candor, as my text 
does, that his teaching blasphemes the name of God and His doctrine. 
When he begins to dote about questions and strifes of words, appealing 
to the Declaration of Independence, and asserting that the idea of pro- 
perty in man is an enormity and a crime, I still hold him to the record, 
saying, "Ye shall take him as an inheritance for your children , after 
you to inherit them for a possession." When he waxes warm — as he 
always does if his opponent quotes Scripture, (which is the great test to 
try the spirits whether they be of God — the very spear of Ithuriel to 
reveal their true character,) when he gets angry, and begins to pour 
out his evil surmisings and abuse upon slaveholders — I obey the pre- 
cept which says, "from such withdraw thyself," comforting myself 
with this thought: that the wisdom of God is wiser than men, and the 
kindness of God, kinder than men. Philosophers may reason and 
reformers may rave till doomsday, they never can convince me that 
God, in the Levitical law, or in any other law, sanctioned sin ; and, as I 
know from the plain passage I have quoted, and many more like it, 
that He did sanction slaveholding among his ancient people, I know, 
also, by the logic of that faith which believes the Bible to be His 
word, that slaveholding is not sin. There are men even among pro- 
fessing Christians, and not a few ministers of the gospel, who answe 
this argument from the Old Testament Scriptures by a simple denial 
of their authority. They do not tell us how God could ever or any 



"8 

where countenance that winch is morally wrong, but they content 
themselves with saying that the Levitical law is no rule of action for 
us, and they appeal from its decisions to what they consider the higher 
tribunal of the gospel. Let us, therefore, join issue with them before 
the bar of the New Testament Scriptures. It is a historic truth, 
acknowledged on all hands, that at the advent of Jesus Christ slavery 
existed all over the civilized world, and was intimately interwoven 
with its social and civil institutions. In Judea, in Asia Minor, in 
Greece, in all the countries where the Saviour or his apostles preached 
the gospel, slaveholding was just as common as it is to-day in South 
Carolina. It is not alleged by any one, or at least by any one having 
any pretensions to scholarship or candor, that the Koman laws regu- 
lating slavery were even as mild as the very worst statutes which have 
been passed upon the subject in modern times. It will not be denied 
by any honest and well informed man that modern civilization and 
the restraining influences of the gospel have shed ameliorating influences 
upon the relation between master and slave, which was utterly unknown 
at the advent of Christianity. And how did Jesus and his apostles 
treat this subject? Masters and slaves met them at every step in 
their missionary work, and were even present in every audience to 
which they preached. The Roman law which gave the full power 
of life and death into the master's hand, was familiar to them, and 
all the evils connected with the system surrounded them every day 
as obviously as the light of heaven ; and yet it is a remarkable fact 
— which the abolitionist does not, because he cannot, deny — that the 
New Testament is utterly silent in regard to the alleged sinfulness of 
slaveholdinsf. In all the instructions of the Saviour — in all the 
reported sermons of the inspired apostles — in all the epistles they were 
moved by the Holy Spirit to write for the instruction of coming gener- 
ations — there is not one distinct and explicit denunciation of slave- 
holding, nor one precept requiring the master to emancipate his slaves. 
Every acknowledged sin is openly and repeatedly condemned, and in 
unmeasured terms. Drunkenness and adultery, theft and murder — all 
the moral wrong which ever have been known to afflict society are 
forbidden by name; and yet, according to the teaching of abolitionism, 
the greatest of all sins — " this sum of all villanies" — is never spoken of, 
except in respectful terms. IIow can this be accounted for? 

Let Dr. Wayland, whose work on moral science is taught in many 
of our schools, answer this question, and let parents, whose children 
are studying that book, diligently consider his answer. I quote from 
Wayland's Moral Science, page 213 : 



9 

"The Gospel was designed not for one race or for one time, but for 
all races and for all times. It looked not to the abolition of slavery 
for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence the import- 
ant object of its author was to gain for it a lodgment in every part of 
the known world, so that by its universal diffusion among all classes 
of society it might quietly and peacefully modify and subdue the evil 
passions of men. In this manner alone could its object — a universal 
moral revolution — have been accomplished. For if it had forbidden 
the evil, instead of subverting the principle ; if it had proclaimed the 
unlawfulness of slavery and taught slaves to resist the oppression 
of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two parties in 
deadly hostility throughout the civilized world; its announcement 
would have been the signal of servile war, and the very name of the 
Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the agitation of 
universal bloodshed." 

We pause not now to comment upon the admitted fact that Jesus 
Christ and his apostles pursued a course entirely different from that 
adopted by the abolitionists, including the learned author himself, nor 
to enquire whether the teaching of abolitionism is not as likely to 
produce strife and bloodshed in these daj^s as in the first ages of the 
church. What we now call attention to, and protest against, is the 
imputation here cast upon Christ and his apostles. Do you believe 
the Saviour sought to insinuate his religion into the earth by conceal- 
ing its real design, and preserving a profound silence in regard to one 
of the very worst sins it came to destroy ? Do you believe that when 
he healed the centurion's servant, (whom every honest commentator 
admits to have been a slave,) and pronounced that precious eulogy 
upon the master, " I have not seen so great faith in Israel" — do you 
believe that Jesus suffered that man to live on in sin because he depre- 
cated the consequences of preaching abolitionism ? When Paul stood 
upon Mars' hill, surrounded by ten thousand times as many slaveholders 
as there were idols in the city, do you believe he kept back any part 
of the requirements of the gospel, because he was afraid of a tumult 
among the people ? We ask these abolition philosophers whether, as 
a matter of fact, idolatry and the vices connected with it were not even 
more intimately interwoven with the social and civil life of the Eoman 
empire than slavery was ? Did the apostles abstain from preach- 
ing against idolatry ? Nay, who does not know that by denouncing 
this sin they brought down upon themselves the whole power of the 
Koman empire ? Nero covered the bodies of the Christian martyrs 



10 

with pitch, and lighted up the city with their burning bodies, just be- 
cause they would not withhold or compromise the truth in regard to 
the worship of idols. In the light of that fierce persecution, it is a 
profane trifling for Dr. Wayland, or any other man, to tell us that 
Jesus or Paul held back their honest opinions of slavery for fear of " a 
servile war, in which the very name of the Christian religion would 
have been forgotten." The name of the Christian religion is not so 
easily forgotten ; nor are God's great purposes of redemption capable 
of being defeated by an honest declaration of His truth everywhere 
and at all times. And yet this philosophy, so dishonoring to Christ 
and his apostles, is moulding the character of our young men and 
women. It comes into our schools and mingles with the very life-blood 
of future generations the sentiment that Christ and his apostles held 
back the truth, and suffered sin to go unrebuked for fear of the wrath 
of man. And all this to maintain, at all hazards, and in the face of 
the Saviour's example to the contrary, the unscriptural dogma that 
slaveholding is sin. But it must be observed in this connection that 
the apostles went much further than to abstain from preaching against 
slaveholding. They admitted slaveholders to the communion of the 
church. In our text, masters are acknowledged as "brethren, faithful 
and beloved, partakers of the benefit." If the New Testament is to be 
received as a faithful history, no man was ever rejected by the apos- 
tolic church upon the ground that he owned slaves. If he abused his 
power as a master, if he availed himself of the authority conferred by 
the Eoman law to commit adultery, or murder, or cruelty, he was re- 
jected for these crimes, just as he would be rejected now for similar 
crimes from any Christian church in our Southern States. If parents 
abused or neglected their children, they were censured, not for having 
children, but for not treating them properly. And so with the slave- 
holder. It was not the owning of slaves, but the manner in which he 
fulfilled the duties of his station that made him a subject for church 
discipline. The mere fact that he was a slaveholder no more subjected 
liim to censure than the mere fact that he was a father or a husband. 
It is upon the recognized lawfulness of the relation, that all the precepts 
regulating the reciprocal duties of that relation are based. 

These precepts are scattered all through the inspired epistles. There 
is not one command or exhortation to emancipate the slave. The 
apostle well knew, that for the present, emancipation would be no real 
blessing to him. But the master is exhorted to be kind and considerate, 
and the slave to be obedient, that so they might preserve the unity of 
that church in which there is no distinction between Greek or Jew, 



11 

male or female, bond or free. Oh, if ministers of the gospel in this 
land or age, had but followed Paul as he followed Christ, and, instead 
of hurling anathemas and exciting wrath against slaveholders, had 
sought only to bring both master and slave to the fountain of Eman- 
uel's blood ; if the agencies of the blessed gospel had only been suftered 
to work their way quietly, as the light and dew of the morning, into 
the structure of society, both North and South, how different would 
have been the position of our country this day before God! How 
different would have been the privileges enjoyed by the poor black 
man's soul, which in this bitter contest, has been too much neglected 
and despised. Then there would have been no need to have converted 
our churches into military barracks for collecting firearms to carry on 
war upon a distant frontier. No need for a sovereign State to execute 
the fearful penalty of the law upon the invader for doing no more than 
honestly to carry out the teaching of abolition preachers, who bind 
heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's 
shoulders, while they touch them not with one of their fingers. No 
need for the widow and the orphan to weep in anguish of heart over 
those cold graves, for whose dishonor and desolation God will hold the 
real authors responsible. No occasion or pretext for slaveholding 
States to pass such stringent laws for the punishment of the secret 
incendiary and the prevention of servile war. 

I shall not attempt to show what will be the condition of the African 
race in this country when the gospel shall have brought all classes 
under its complete dominion. What civil and social relations men 
will sustain in the times of millenial glory, I do not know. I cordiall}^ 
embrace the current opinion of our church that slavery is permitted 
and regulated by the divine law under both Jewish and Christian 
dispensations, not as the final destiny of the enslaved, but as an impor- 
tant and necessary process in their transition from heathenism to Chris- 
tianity — a wheel in the great machinery of Providence, by which the 
final redemption is to be accomplished. However this may be, one 
thing I know, and every abolitionist mig-ht know if he would, that 
there are Christian families at the South in which a patriarchal fidelity 
and affection subsist between the bond and the free, and where slaves 
are better fed and clothed and instructed, and have a better opportu- 
nity for salvation, than the majority of laboring people in the city of 
New York. If the tongue of abolitionism had only kept silent these 
twenty years past, the number of such families would be tenfold as 
great. Fanaticism at the North is one chief stumbling-block in the 
way of the gospel at the South. This is one great grievance that 



12 

presses to-day upon the hearts of our Christian brethren at the South. 
This, in a measure, explains why such men as Dr. Thornwell, of South 
Carolina, and Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans — men whose genius and 
learning and piety would adorn any State or station — are willing to 
secede from the Union. They feel that the influence of the Christian 
ministry is hindered, and their power to do good to both master and 
slave crippled, by the constant agitations of abolitionism in our national 
councils, and the incessant turmoil excited by the unscriptural dogma, 
that slaveholding is sin. 



II. — THE PRINCIPLES OF ABOLITIONISM HAVE BEEN PROPAGATED 
CHIEFLY BY MISREPRESENTATION AND ABUSE. 

Having no foundation in Scripture, it does not carry on its warfare 
by Scripture weapons. Its prevailing spirit is fierce and proud, and 
its language is full of wrath and bitterness. Let me prove this, by tes- 
timony from its own lips. I quote Dr Channing, of Boston, whose 
name is a tower of strength to the abolition cause, and whose memory 
is their continual boast. In a work published in 1836, I find the fol- 
lowing words : 

" The abolitionists have done wrong, I believe ; nor is their wrong 
to be winked at because done fanatically or with good intentions ; for 
how much mischeif may be wrought with good designs ! They have 
fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that of exaggerating their 
object, of feeling as if no evil existed but that which they opposed, and 
as if no guilt could be compared with that of countenancing and uphold- 
ing it. The tone of their newspapers, so far as I have seen them, has 
often been fierce, bitter and abusive. They have sent forth their 
orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the alarm 
against slavery through the land, to gather together young and old, 
pupils from schools, females hardly arrived at the years of discretion, 
the ignorant, the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these into 
associations for the battle against oppression. Very unhappily they 
preached their doctrine to the colored people, and collected them into 
societies. To this mixed and excitable multitude, minute heart-rending 
descriptions of slavery were given in piercing tones of passion ; and 
slaveholders were held up as monsters of cruelty and crime. The aboli- 
tionist, indeed, proposed to convert slaveholders ; and for this end he 
approached them with vituperation, and exhausted on them the voca- 
bulary of abuse. And he has reaped as he sowed." 



13 

Such is the testimony of Dr. Channing, given in the year 1836. 
What would he have thought and said if he had lived until the year 1860, 
and seen this little stream, over whose infant violence he lamented, 
swelling into a torrent and flooding the land ? Abolitionism is abusive 
in its persistent misrepresentation of the legal principles involved in 
the relation between master and slave. They reiterate in a thousand 
exciting forms the assertion, that the idea of property in man blots out 
his manhood and degrades him to the level of a brute or a stone. 
" Domestic slavery," says Dr. Wayland, in his work on moral science, 
"supposes at best, that the relation between master and slave is not 
that which exists between man and man, but is a modification, at least, 
of that which exists between man and the brutes." Do not these aboli- 
tionist philosophers know, that according to the laws of every civilized 
country on earth, a man has property in his children, and a woman 
has property in her husband ? The statutes of the State of New York, 
and of every other Northern State, recognize and protect this property, 
and our courts of justice have repeatedly assessed its value. If a man is 
killed on a railroad, his wife may bring suit and recover damages for 
the pecuniary loss she has suffered. If one man entice away the 
daughter of another, and marry her while she is still under age, the 
father may bring a civil suit for damages for the loss of that child's 
services, and the pecuniary compensation is the only redress the law 
provides. Thus the common law of Christendom, and the statutes of 
our own State, recognize property in man. In what does that property 
consist? Simply in such services as a man or child may properly be 
required to render. This is all that the Levitical law, or any other 
law, means when it says, "Your bondmen shall be your possession or 
property and an inheritance for your children." The property consists 
not in the right to treat the slave like a brute, but simply in a legal 
claim for such services as a man in that position may properly be 
required to render. And yet, abolitionists, in the face of the divine 
law, persist in denouncing the very relation between master and slave, 
" as a modification at least of that which exists between man and the 
brutes." This, however, is not the worst or most prevalent form which 
their abusive spirit assumes. Their mode of arguing the question of 
slaveholding, by a pretended appeal to facts, is a tissue of misrepresen- 
tation from beginning to end. Let me illustrate my meaning by a 
parallel case. Suppose I undertake to prove the wickedness of mar- 
riage as it exists in the city of New York. In this discussion, suppose 
the Bible is excluded, or at least that it is not recognized as having 



14 

exclusive jurisdiction in the decision of the question. My first appeal 
IS to the statute law of the State. 

I show there enactments which nullify the law of God and make 
divorce a marketable and cheap commodity. I collect the advertise- 
ments of your daily papers, in which lawyers offer to procure the legal 
separation of man and wife for a stipulated price, to say nothing in this 
sacred place of other advertisements which decency forbids me to quote. 
Then I turn to the records of our criminal courts, and find that every 
day some cruel husband beats his wife, or some unnatural parent 
murders his child, or some discontented wife or husband seeks the dis- 
solution of the marriage bond. In the next place, I turn to the orphan 
asylums and hospitals, and show there the miserable wrecks of domestic 
tyranny in wifes deserted, and children maimed by drunken parents. 
In the last })lace, I go through our streets and into our tenement houses, 
and count the thousands of ragged children who, amid ignorance and 
filth, are training for the prison and gallows. Summing all these facts 
together, I put them forth as the fruits of marriage in the city of New 
York, and a proof that the relation itself is sinful. If I were a novelist, 
and had written a book to illustrate this same doctrine, I would call 
this array of facts a " Key." In this key I say nothing about the sweet 
charities and affections that flourish in ten thousand homes, not a word 
about the multitude of loving kindnesses that characterize the daily 
life of honest people, about the instruction and discipline that are 
training children at ten thousand firesides for usefulness here and glory 
hereafter ; all this I ignore, and quote only the statute book, the news- 
papers, the records of criminal courts, and the miseries of the abodes 
of poverty. 

Now, what have I done ? I have not mis-stated or exaggerated a 
single fact. And yet, am I not a falsifier and slanderer of the deepest 
die ? Is there a virtuous woman or an honest man in this city whose 
cheeks would not burn with indignation at my one-sided and injurious 
statements ? Now, this is just what abolitionism has done in regard 
to slaveholding. It has undertaken to illustrate its cardinal doctrine 
in works of fiction, and then, to sustain the creation of its fancy, has 
attempted to underpin it with an accumulation of facts. These facts 
are collected in precisely the way I have described. The statute books of 
slaveholding States are searched, and every wrong enactment collated, 
newspaper reports of cruelty and crime on the part of wicked masters 
are treasured up and classified ; all the outrages that have been perpe- 
trated " by lewd fellows of the baser sort," of whom there are plenty 
both North and South, are eagerly seized and recorded, and this mass of 



15 

vileness and filth, collected from the kennels and sewers of society, is put 
forth as a faithful exhibition of slaveholding. Senators in the forum, 
and ministers in the pulpit, distil this raw material into the more 
refined slander "that Southern society is essentially barbarous, and 
that slaveholding had its origin in hell." Legislative bodies enact and 
re-enact statutes which declare that slaveholding is such an enormous 
crime that if a Southern man, under the broad shield of the Constitu- 
tion, and with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the country in 
his hand, shall come within their jurisdiction and set up a claim 
to a fugitive slave, he shall be punished with a fine of $2,000 and 
fifteen years imprisonment. This method of argument has continued 
until multitudes of honest Christian people in this and other lands 
believe that slaveholding is the sin of sins — the sum of all villanies. 
Let me illustrate this, by an incident in my own experience. A few 
years since, I took from the center-table of a Christian family in Scot- 
land, by whom I had been most kindly entertained, a book entitled 
" Life and Manners in America." On the blank leaf was an inscription, 
stating that the book had been bestowed upon one of the children of the 
family as a reward of diligence in an institution of learning. The 
frontispiece was a picture of a man of fierce countenance beating a naked 
woman. The contents of the book were professedly compiled from the 
testimony of Americans upon the subject of slavery. I dare not quote in 
this place the extracts which I made in my memorandum. It will be 
sufficient to say that the book asserts as undoubted facts, that the banks 
of the Mississippi are studded with iron gallows for the punishment of 
slaves ; that in the city of Charleston, the bloody block on which masters 
cut off the hands of disobedient servants may be seen in the public squares ; 
and that sins against chastity are common and unrebuked in professedly 
Christian families. 

Now, in my heart I did not feel angry at the author of that 
book, nor at the school-teacher who bestowed it upon his scholar, for 
in Christian charity I gave them credit for honesty in the case ; but 
standing there a stranger among the martyr memories of that glorious 
land to which my heart had so often made its pilgrimage, I did feel 
that you and I, and every man in America, was wronged by the revilers 
of their native land, who teach foreigners that hanging and cutting oft" 
hands, and beating women, are the characteristics of our life and 
manners. 

But we need not go to foreign lands for proof that abolitionism has 
carried on its warfare by the language of abuse. The annual meeting 
of the American Anti-slavery Society brings the evidence to our doors. 



16 

We have been accustomed to laugh at these venal exhibitions of fanat- 
icism, not thinking perhaps that what was fun for us was working death 
to our brethren whose property and reputation we are bound to protect. 
The fact is, we have suffered a fire to be built in our midst, whose 
sparks have been scattered far and wide ; and now, when the smoke of 
the conflagration comes back to blind our eyes, and the heat of it begins 
to scorch our industrial and commercial interests, it will not do for us 
to say that the utterances of that society are the ravings of a fanatical 
and insignificant few; for the men who compose it are honored in our 
midst with titles and offices. 

Its President is a Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey. The 
ministers who have thrown over its doings the sanction of our holy 
religion, are quoted and magnified all over the land as the representa- 
tive men of the age ; and the man who stood up in its deliberations, in 
the year 1852, and exhausted the vocabulary of abuse upon the com- 
promise measures, and the great statesmen who framed them, is now a 
judge in oar courts, and the guardian of our lives and our property. 

It will doubtless be said that misrepresentations and abuse have 
not been confined, in the progress of this unhappy contest, to the aboli- 
tionists of the North; that demagogues and self-seeking men at the 
South have been violent and abusive, and that newspapers professedly 
in the interests of the South, with a spirit which can be characterized as 
little less than diabolical, have circulated every scandal in the most 
aggravated and irritating form. But suppose all this to be granted — 
what then ? Can Christian men justify or palliate the -^vrath and evil 
speaking which are at their own doors, by pointing to the retaliation 
which it has provoked from their neighbors? If I were preaching to- 
day to a Southern audience it would be my duty, and I trust God 
would give me grace to perform it, to tell them of their sins in this matter ; 
and especially would it be my privilege as a minister of the Gospel of 
peace — a privilege from which no false views of manhood should pre- 
vent me — to exhort and beseech them as brethren. I would assure 
them that there are multitudes here who still cherish the memory of 
the battle-fields and council-chambers where our fathers cemented this 
Union of States, and who still stand by the compact of the Constitution 
to the utmost extremity. 

I would toll the thousands of Christian ministers, among whom are 
some of the brightest ornaments of the American pulpit, and the tens 
of thousands of Christian men and women, towards whom, while the 
love of Christ burns in me, my heart never can grow cold, that if they 
will only be patient and hope to the end, all wrongs may yet be righted. 



17 

Therefore, I would beseecli them not to put a great gulf between its, 
and cut off' the very opportunity for reconciliation upon an honorable 
basis by a revolution whose end no human eye can see. But, then, 
I am not preaching at the South, I stand here, at one of the main 
fountain-heads of the abuse we have complained of 

I stand here to rebuke this sin, and exhort the guilty parties to 
repent and forsake it. It is magnanimous and Christ-like for those 
from whom the first provocation came to make the first concessions. 

The legislative enactments which are in open and acknowledged 
violation of the Constitution, and whose chief design is to put a stigma 
upon slaveholding, must and will be repealed. Truth and justice will 
ultimately prevail ; and God's blessing, and the blessings of generations 
yet unborn, will rest upon that party, in this unhappy contest, who 
first stand forth to utter the language of conciliation and proffer the 
olive branch of peace. The great fear is that the retraction will come 
too late ; but sooner or later it will come. Abolitionism ought to, and 
one day will, change the mode of its warfare, and adopt a new vocabu- 
lary. I believe in the liberty of the press and in freedom of speech ; 
but I do not believe that any man has a right before God, or in the eye 
of civilized law, to speak and publish what he pleases without regard 
to the consequences. With the conscientious convictions of our fellow- 
citizens, neither we nor the law has any right to interfere ; but the law 
ought to protect all men from the utterance of libellous words whose only 
effect is to create division and strife. 

I trust and pray, and call upon you to unite Avith me in the suppli- 
cation, that God would give abolitionists repentance and a better mind 
so that in time to come, they may at least propagate their principles 
in decent and respectful language. 

III. — ABOLITIONISM LEADS IN MULTITUDES OF CASES, AND BY A LOGICAL 
PROCESS, TO UTTER INFIDELITY. 

On this point I would not and will not be misunderstood. I do not 
say that abolitionism is infidelity. I speak only of the tendencies of 
the system as indicated in its avowed principles, and demonstrated in 
'its practical fruits. 

It does not try slavery by the Bible, but, as one of its leading advo- 
cates has recently declared, it tries the Bible by the principles of free- 
dom. It insists that the word of God must be made to support certain 
human opinions, or forfeit all claims upon our faith.* That I may not 
be suspected of exaggeration on this point, let me quote from the recent 



18 

work of Mr. Barnes a passage ■vvliicli may well arrest the attention of 
all thinking men : 

"There are great principles in our nature, as God has made us, which 
can never be set aside by any authority of a professed revelation. If 
a book claiming to be a revelation from God, by any fair interpretation, 
defended slavery, or placed it on the same basis as the relation of hus- 
band and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, such a book would 
not and could not be received by the mass of mankind as a Divine 
revelation." 

This assumption that men are capable of judging beforehand what 
is to be expected in a divine revelation, is the cockatrice's egg from 
which in all ages heresies have been hatched. This is the spider's web 
which men have spun out of their own brains, and clinging to which 
they have attempted to swing over the yawning abyss of infidelity. Alas> 
how many have fallen in and been dashed to pieces ! When a man sets 
up the great principles of our nature (by which he always means his 
own preconceived opinions) as the supreme tribunal before which even 
the law of God must be tried — when a man says, "The, Bible must teach 
abolitionism, or I will not receive it," — he has already cut loose from the 
sheet anchor of faith. True belief says, " Speak, Lord, thy servant waits 
to hear." Abolitionism says, " Speak, Lord, but speak in accordance 
with the principles of human nature, or they cannot be received by the 
great mass of mankind as a divine revelation." The fruit of such prin- 
ciples is just what we might expect. Wherever the seed of abolition- 
ism has been sown broadcast, a plentiful crop of infidelity has sprung up. 
In the communities where anti-slavery excitement has been most pre- 
valent, the power of the gospel has invariably declined ; and when the 
tide of fanaticism begins to subside, the wrecks of church order and of 
Christian character have been scattered on the shore. I mean no dis- 
respect to New England — to the good men who there stand by the 
ancient landmarks and contend earnestly for the truth — nor to the illus- 
trious dead whose praise is in all the chwrches ; but who does not know 
that the States in which abolitionism has achieved its most signal triumphs 
are at the same time the great strongholds of infidelity in the land ? I 
have often thought that if some of those old Pilgrim fathers could come 
back, in the spirit and power of Elias, to attend a grand celebration at 
Plymouth rock, they might well preach on this text : "If ye were Abra- 
ham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham." The effect of 
abolitionism upon«individuals is no less striking and mournful than its 
infiuence u}ion communities. It is a remarkable and instructive fact, 
and one at which Christian men would do well to pause and consider, 



19 

that in this country all the prominent leaders of abolitionism, outside 
of the ministry, have become avowed infidels ; and that all our noto- 
rious abolition preachers have renounced the great doctrines of grace 
as the}^ are taught in the standards of the reformed churches — have 
resorted to the most violent processes of interpretation to avoid the 
obvious meaning of plain Scriptural texts, and ascribed to the apostles 
of Christ principles from which piety and moral courage instinctively 
revolt. They make that to be sin which the Bible does not declare to 
be sin. They denounce, in language such as the sternest prophets of 
the law never employed, a relation which Jesus and his apostles recog- 
nized and regulated. Thc}^ seek to institute terms and texts of Christian 
communion utterly at variance with the organic law of the church as 
founded by its Divine Head ; and, attempting to justify this usurpation 
of divine prerogatives by an appeal from God's law to the dictates of 
fallen human nature, they would set up a spiritual tyranny more odioua 
and insufferable, because more arbitrary and uncertain in its decisions, 
than Popery itself. And as the tree is so have its fruits been. It is 
not a theory, but a demonstrated fact, that abolitionism leads to infi- 
delity. Such men as Garrison, and Giddings, and Gerrit Smith, have 
yielded to the current of their own principles, and thrown the Bible 
overboard. Thousands of humbler men who listen to abolition preach- 
ers will go and do likewise. And whether it be the restraints of oflicial 
position, or the preventing grace of God, that enables such preachers 
to row up the stream and regard the authority of Scripture in other 
matters, their influence upon this one subject is all the more pernicious 
because they prophesy in the name of Christ, In this sincere and plain 
utterance of my deep convictions, I am only discharging my conscience 
toward the flock over which I am set. When the shepherd seeth the 
wolf coming, he is bound to give warning. 

IV. — ABOLITIONISM IS THE CHIEF CAUSE OF THE STRIFE THAT AGITATES 
AND THE DANGER THAT THREATENS OUR COUNTRY. 

Here, as upon the preceeding point, I will not be misunderstood. I 
am not here as the advocate or opponent of any political party ; and it 
is no more than simple justice for me to say plainly, that I do not con- 
sider Republican an^ Abolitionist as necessarily synonymous terms. 
There are tens of thousands of Christian men who voted with the suc- 
cessful party in the late election, who do not sympathize with the prin- 
ciples or aims of abolitionism. Among these are some beloved mem- 
bers of my own flock, who will not hesitate a moment to put the seal 
of their approbation upon the doctrine of this discourse. And what ia 



20 

still more to the point, there seems to be sufficient evidence that the 
man who has just been chosen to be the head of this nation, is among 
the more conservative and Bible-loving men of his party. We have 
no fears that if the new administration could be quietly inaugurated, it 
would or could abolitionize the government. There are honest people 
enough in the Northern States to prevent such a result. But, then, 
while this is admitted as a simple matter of truth and justice, it cannot 
be denied, on the other hand, that abolitionism did enter, with all its 
characteristic bitterness, into the recent contest ; that the result never 
could have been accomplished without its assistance, and that it now 
appropriates the victory in words of ridicule and scorn that sting like 
a serpent. Let me give you, as a single specimen of the spirit in which 
abolitionism has carried on its political warfare, an extract from a jour- 
nal which claims to have a larger circulation than any other religious 
paper in the land. I quote from the Neiv York Independent, of Sep- 
tember, 1856: 

" The people will not levy war nor inaugurate a revolution, even to 
relieve Kansas, until they have first tried what they can do by voting. 
If this peaceful remedy should fail to be applied this year, then the 
people will count the cost wisely, and decide for themselves boldly and 
firmly which is the better way to rise in arms and throw off a government 
worse than that of old King George, or endure it another four years, 
and then vote again." 

Such is the spirit — such the love to the Constitution and Union of 
these States — with which this religious element has entered into and 
seeks to control»our party politics. 

But we deceive ourselves if we suppose that our present dangers are 
of a birth so recent as 1856. As the questions now before the country 
rise in their magnitude above all party interests and ought at once to 
blot out all party lines, so their origin is found far back of all party 
organizations as they now exist. 

An article published twenty years ago in the Princeton Beviezo, con- 
tains this remarkable language : 

"The opinion that slaveholding is itself a crime must operate to pro- 
duce the disunion of the States and the division of all ecclesiastical socie- 
ties in this country. Just so far as this opinion operates, it will lead 
those who entertain it to submit to any sacriiices to carry it out and 
give it effect. We shall become two nations in feeling, which must 
soon render us two nations in fact." 

These words are wonderfully prophetic, and tliey who read the signs 
of the times must see that the period of thfeir fulfillment draws near. 



21 

In regard to ecclesiastical societies, the division foretold is already in a 
great measure accomplished. Three of our great religious denomina- 
tions have been rent in twain by the simple question, " Is slaveholding 
a sin?" 

It yet remains to be seen whether the American Tract Society, and 
the American Board of Foreign Missions, will be revolutionized and 
dismembered by a contest which, we are told, is to be annually renewed. 
In regard to the Union. of these States, there is too much reason to fear 
that " we are already two nations in feeling," and to anticipate the 
near approach of the calamity which shall blot out some of the stars 
in our ensign and make us two nations in fact. 

And what has brought us to the verge of this precipice ? What 
evil spirit has put enmity between the seed of those whom God by his 
blessing on the wisdom and sacrifices of our fathers, made one flesh ? 
What has created and fostered this alienation between the North and 
South, until disunion — that used to be whispered in corners — stalks 
forth in open daylight, and is recognized as a necessity by multitudes 
of thinking men in all sections of the land ? I believe before God, 
that this division of feeling, of which actual disunion will be but the 
expression and embodiment, was begotten of abolitionism, has been 
rocked in its cradle and fed with its poisoned milk, and instructed by 
its ministers, until girded with a strength which comes not altogether 
of this upper world, it is taking hold upon the pillars of the Constitu- 
tion and shattering the noble fabric to its base. 

There was a time when the Constitutional questions between the 
North and South — the conflict of material interests growing out of 
their differences in soil and production — were discussed in the spirit of 
statesmanship and Christian courtesy. Then such men as Daniel Web- 
ster on the one side, and Calhoun on the other, stood up face to face, and 
defended the rights of their respective constituency in words which 
will be quoted as long as the English tongue shall endure, as a mo- 
del of eloquence and a pattern of manly debate. But abolitionism 
began to creep in. It came first as a purely moral question ; but very 
soon its doctrines were embraced by a sufficient number to hold the 
balance of power between contending parties in many districts and 
States. Aspirants for the Presidency seized upon it as a weapon for 
gratifying their ambition or avenging their disappointments. Under 
the shadow of their patronage, sincere abolitionists became more bold 
and abusive in advocating their principles. The unlawful and wicked 
business of enticing slaves from their masters was puslied forward with 
increasing zeal. Men who in the better days of the Eepublic could not 



22 

have obtained the smallest office, were elected to Congress upon this 
single issue ; and ministers of the gospel descended from the pulpit to 
mingle religious animosity with the boiling cauldron of political strife. 
Nor was this process confined to one side in the contest. Abuse al- 
ways provokes recrimination. So long as human nature is passionate, 
hard words will be responded to by harder blows. And now behold 
the result! In the halls where Webster and Calhoun, Adams and 
McDuffie rendered the very name of American statesmanship illus- 
trious, and revived the memory of classic eloquence, we have heard the 
outpouring of both Northern and Southern violence from men who 
must . be nameless in this sacred place ; and in the land where such, 
slaveholders as Washington and Madison united with Hamilton and 
Hancock in cementing the Union which they fondly hoped would be 
perpetual, commerce and manufactures, and all our great industrial 
and governmental interests, are trembling on the verge of dissolution ; 
and as abolitionism is the great mischief-maker between North and 
South, so it is the great stumbling-block in the way of a peaceful settle- 
ment of our difficulties. Its voice is still for war. The spirit of con- 
ciliation and compromise it utterly abhors, and, mingling a horrid 
mirth with its maduess, puts into the hands of the advocates of seces- 
sion the very fans with which to blow the embers of strife into a flame. 
One man threw a torch into the great temple of the Ephesians, and 
, kindled a conflagration which a hundred thousand brave men could 
not extinguish. One man fiddled and sang, and made his courtiers 
laugh, amid the burning of Rome — and the abolition preacher " feels 
good" and overflows with merriment, when he sees our merchants and 
laboring men running after their chests and the bread of their families 
" as if all creation was after them," and snuffs on the Southern breeze 
the scent of servile and civil war. 

Oh, shame — shame that it should come to this ; and the name of our 
holy religion be so blasphemed ! Let us hope in Christian charity, that 
such men do not comprehend the danger that stares them in the face. 
Indeed, who of us does fully comprehend it ? In the eloquent words 
of Daniel Webster, "While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, grati- 
fying prospects spread out before us, for us and for our children. Be- 
yond th^t I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, 
at least, that curtain may not rise." A kind and wonderful Providence 
has so tempered the body of these States together, so bound and inter- 
laced them with commercial and social ties, to say nothing of legal 
obligations, that no member can be severed, and especially no contest 
can be waged among the members, without a quivering and anguish 



23 

in every nerve, and a stagnation in the vital currents of all. Let one 
star be blotted out from our ensign, and the moral gravitation which 
holds all in their orbits will be paralyzed, if not utterly destroyed. 
The living example of successful secession for one cause, will suggest 
}ie same course for another ; and unless God gives our public men a 
sdom and forbearance, of which the past few years have afforded too 
rie evidence, the dissolution of this Union will be the signal for the 
^integration of its elements. In such a chaos let us not flatter our- 
selves that we shall be in entire peace and safety. The contest on 
Lvhose perilous edge we seem to stand cannot be merely a sectional 
)ne — all the North on the one side, and all the South on the other. It 
is a conflict that will run the ploughshare of division through every 
State and neighborhood in the land. Abolition orators may talk about 
what "we of the North" will do and will not do, as though all the peo- 
ple had bowed down to worship the image they had set up ; but other 
men besides them will claim the right to speak — other interests will 
need to be conserved besides the cause upon which they arrogantly as- 
sume that victory perches and the smile of heaven rests. " Let not 
him who putteth on his armor boast as he that pulleth it off." When 
the thousands of working-men whose subsistence depends upon our 
trade with the South, many of whom have been deluded by abolition 
demagogues, shall clamor in our streets for bread, free labor may pre- 
sent some problems whidh political economy has not solved. And 
when the commerce of this cosmopolitan city is paralyzed, and all her 
benevolent and industrial institutions are withering in the heat of this 
unnatural contest, it may become a question — nay, is it not already 
whispered in your counting-houses? — whether this great metropolis can 
be separated from the people with whom her interest and her heart is ■ 
bound up, and continue to be controlled by a legislative policy against 
which she is continually protesting? or whether, following the great 
lights of history, she will at all hazards set up for herself, and unbolt- 
ing the gateway of her magnificent harbor, invite the free trade of the 
world to pour its riches into her bosom ? 

Such are a few of the problems which bring the question of a dissolu- 
tion of the Union home to us. If we were sure of a peaceful solution, 
at whatever pecuniary or social sacrifice, we would not feel so deeply 
nor speak so earnestly. But who knows that it will be peaceful ? 
Where is the surgeon who can sever even one member from this body 
politic without the shedding of blood ? Where is tlie statesman or 
political economist who will undertake to control the parties, or direct 
the industrial interests of any one State, amid the confusion and alarm 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



24 

012 028 325 P ^ 

of dissolution? Let us not deceive ourselves, ine cnasm oetore us 
is a yawning abyss, into whose depths no eye but God's can penetrate. 
Other men may cry "who's afraid?" and whistle to keep their courage 
up ; but I confess my fears. Through the curtain that is about to rise, 
I see shadows at which the horror of a great darkness settles down 
upon my spirit, and the hair of my flesh stands up. Let us appeal to 
the God of peace, in whose hands are the hearts of all men, to disp"^ 
the fearful vision, to infuse his loving spirit into our national councitl 
to give our public men the meekness of wisdom, and to bind the heart&\ 
of all the people once more in bonds of brotherly kindness. 1 

But, if we would have these supplications answered, let us prove our't 
faith by our works ; take the beam out of our own eye, and obey the 
two- fold precept of the text : " These things teach and exhort, and if any 
man teach otherwise, from such withdraw thyself." 



